The Cradle of All Worlds. Jeremy Lachlan

are white, symbols of peace and slates-wiped-clean. The Manor Lament marks the anniversary of the Night of All Catastrophes. It’s the one day of the year the townsfolk come together to celebrate and remember the adventures of old. To praise their gods – Po, Aris and Nabu-kai – otherwise known as the three Makers. To chant, pray, feast, dance and – yep – burn effigies of me and Dad. There they are right now. Towering wicker things on wheels.

      Maybe the festival started out as a sombre affair, but it’s more like a party nowadays. And I’m most definitely not on the guest list. I really, really shouldn’t be here.

      ‘I love festival time,’ Violet groans as a wheelbarrow full of fireworks rolls by.

      ‘Calm down, little pyro.’ I drag her into the crowd. ‘I like the idea of these losers running from something other than me, but do you really want a repeat of last year?’

      ‘Hey, if they didn’t want kids around the Dragon Wheels they should’ve put up a sign or something. And I only let off half of them.’

      ‘They were still in storage. I could hear the explosion from the basement.’

      Violet sighs. ‘Yeah, you should’ve seen it.’ Then she goes all puppy-eyed on me. ‘I wish you’d come tonight, Jane. You’ve never been once. Why don’t you just give it a go?’

      ‘Do I really need to answer that?’

      ‘We could dress you up. Like a tree or something. Get a few sticks, some leaves –’

      ‘I’m not coming to the festival, Violet. Ever. Now can you drop it?’

      ‘Fine. I’m dropping it. It’s dropped. Do you reckon it’ll happen this year though?’

      ‘Do I think you’ll blow something up? Probably.’

      ‘No, stupid. The thing everyone’s thinking. Do you reckon it’ll finally wake up?’

      I look around at the crowd. Between the trundling, building, sweeping and cleaning, everyone keeps glancing up the Sacred Stairs on the far side of the square. Straight as a tack and crumbling at the edges, the colossal staircase stretches all the way up the steep hill in the centre of the island, raised above the terraced farms by a series of towering arches. Up, up, up they climb, scaling the rugged, rocky slope of the hilltop – a dizzying height now, almost as steep as a ladder – until they’re devoured by an enormous stone door. The gateway to Bluehaven’s great lamented treasure.

      The Manor.

      With its towering columns and crummy stonework, the Manor looks more like an ancient ruin than anything. A gigantic gargoyle crowning the island, born of the cliffs themselves, as old as the sea and sky. Crumbling statues flank its windowless walls. Dying vines creep up its sides. For thousands of years, the people of Bluehaven worshipped it, praised it, journeyed through it to the Otherworlds, but it has stood like this – dormant, lifeless, closed to all – for well over a decade now. Fourteen years, to be precise.

      Ever since me and Dad came to town.

      They say there was a storm. They say Dad fell through the gateway and collapsed at the top of the Stairs. A man without a past. Without a name. John Doe, they called him. John Doe and his baby, Jane. Apparently, I was bundled up in his arms, crying.

      They say the first quake struck at once.

      ‘Jane? Oi.’ Violet tugs at my cloak. ‘I said, do you reckon it’ll wake up?’

      ‘Don’t know, don’t care.’

      ‘All right, all right. Stroppy pants. I don’t reckon it was your fault, by the way.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘I mean, you caused the Night of All Catastrophes?’ Violet hocks a golly and shines a cobblestone between her feet, a refined skill I taught her last year. ‘You’re afraid of the dark, you slobber in your sleep, and you can’t even swim, let alone curse an entire island. And yeah, your eyes are kinda creepy, but you’re not an aboma– I mean, abomo–’

      ‘Abomination.’

      ‘Yeah, that. Point is, nobody knows where you and John came from. Or what really happened inside the Manor that night. Miss Bolin reckons you cursed your home-world. Ruined everything. She told the whole class yesterday that John must’ve been trying to dump you in a different world, coz he was so ashamed and all, so you cursed him, too, like some sort of evil baby mastermind, and that’s why he’s sick.’ She shakes her head. ‘Rubbish.’

      ‘It’s actually a pretty popular theory, but still. Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

      Violet squints up at the Manor. ‘At least you can say you’ve been inside it. You’re pretty lucky, if you think about it.’

      ‘You there! Hey! ’

      Damn it. Old Barnaby Twigg just spotted me through the crowd.

      ‘Alaaaarm! Devil in our midst! Be gone, despoiler!’

      ‘Get down.’ I pull Violet behind a crate of bananas.

      Barnaby’s obsession with the Manor is on a whole other level. Determined to witness the re-awakening first-hand, the pot-bellied maniac sleeps, eats, sometimes even bathes beside the well in the centre of the square, just so he can be first up the Stairs every morning and the last at night. He’s dressed in his best safari suit today. Thankfully, everyone’s so used to his rambling that they completely ignore him.

      ‘Leave now or I’ll destroy you,’ he bellows, clambering atop the well, ‘just like the demon soldiers of Yan! Killed ’em all, I did. With a slice, boom, cha, huzzah! True story.’

      ‘Yep,’ I mutter. ‘I’m the luckiest girl around.’

      Violet grabs my arm. ‘Jane,’ she whispers, and points at a pocket-watch dangling from the hand of a stranger nearby. I lean in, can only just tell the time from here. My gut twists.

      It’s already a minute past ten.

      ‘Uh-oh . . .’

      We leave Barnaby to his theatrics and scoot back into the crowd, heading for the road that leads down to White Rock Cove. Violet tries to convince me to let her come.

      ‘No way,’ I say. ‘Skirt round and wait for me on the western side of the cove. If I’m not there in, I dunno, fifteen minutes, head home, check on Dad for me, and sit tight. Don’t come looking for me. Got it?’

      ‘But I can just hang back and –’

      ‘No time to argue, Violet. You go. I’ll be fine.’

      ‘Okay,’ she says, ‘okay, okay, okay.’ She’s pacing on the spot like she needs to pee, but fixing me with a Super Serious Stare. ‘Good luck, Jane. I’ll see you on the other side.’

      And she dashes off into the crowd.

CATCH OF THE DAY

      The streets of Bluehaven might be fair game for me on the odd occasion, but I’m banned from entering all public buildings. Never really cared, either. The museum? The Town Hall? Boring-with-a-capital-Ugh. But as far as school goes, curiosity got the better of me years ago. Trying to resist this colourful place where kids gathered every day to learn, read, laugh and play was like resisting the urge to pee. The longer I held it in, the more I had to go.

      I used to sneak down a few days a week. I learned my times tables crouched beneath an open window. Learned the names of clouds hiding in an alleyway outside a science lab. When I was nine, I snuck into an actual classroom and spent most of the day stowed away in a cupboard. Peering at the class through a chink in the doors, I learned how their ancestors came from across the seas, having fled the Dying Lands. I learned the difference between a labyrinth and a maze. I even learned that booby traps have nothing to do with actual boobies. Unfortunately, the cupboard I’d chosen was filled with